Bosnia and Herzegovina Country Overview
Where is Bosnia and Herzegovina located? Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country found in Southeastern Europe. Like Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina is on the time zone map, which divides the world into world time zones along the lines of longitude, in “Central European Time” (MEZ), also called “Central European Time” (CET). In this time zone, the time is always 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC +1). If the time shift to “Central European Summer Time” takes place in summer, the time difference between regional and world time is 2 hours.
Population Distribution
As of 2023, the latest population of Bosnia and Herzegovina is 3,835,586, based on our calculation of the current data from UN (United Nations).
| Total population | 3,835,586 |
| Population growth rate | -0.19% |
| Birth rate | 8.80 births per 1,000 people |
| Life expectancy | |
| Overall life expectancy | 76.12 years |
| Men life expectancy | 73.13 years |
| Women life expectancy | 79.34 years |
| Age structure | |
| 0-14 years | 13.24% |
| 15-64 years | 71.72% |
| 65 years and above | 15.04% |
| Median age | 41.20 years |
| Gender ratio (Male to Female) | 0.95 |
| Population density | 74.92 residents per km² |
| Urbanization | 44.30% |
| Ethnicities | |
| 50.1% Bosniaks, 30.8% Serbs, 15.4% Croats | |
| Religions | |
| Muslim 40%, Serbian Orthodox 31%, Catholics (Roman Catholic) 15%, Protestants 4%, others 10% | |
| Human Development Index (HDI) | 0.769 |
| HDI ranking | 75th out of 194 |
People in Bosnia and Herzegovina
The residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina are not called Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the name might suggest, but simply Bosnians. This includes the three major ethnic groups of Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. The Croats and Serbs have settled in Bosnia and Herzegovina from neighboring countries. The group of Bosniaks, on the other hand, describes Muslims living in the country who originally come from Bosnia.
The ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina
A good half of the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina are Bosniaks. The next large group is formed by the Serbs, of whom about 30 out of 100 Bosnians belong. 15 out of 100 Bosnians are Croatians. In addition to these three large ethnic groups, there are also several minorities in the country, for example the Jews or the Roma.
Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina
The three languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina are Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian. These three languages are very similar to each other because they all belong to the Slavic languages. Therefore, these three languages are sometimes seen as variants of the Serbo-Croatian language and not as separate languages.
Language Bosnia
The difference between the languages in Bosnia is not so much the result of the language itself, rather they are a means by which the ethnic groups of Bosnians, Serbs and Croats differentiate themselves from one another.
The biggest difference between them is in the alphabet, because Bosnian and Croatian are written in the Latin alphabet and Serbian in the Cyrillic alphabet. On street signs, the same term is usually written once in Latin and once in Cyrillic.
Religions in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Which religion a Bosnian belongs to can mainly be deduced from the affiliation to his ethnic group. The Bosniaks are Muslim, the Serbs Orthodox and the Croats Catholic. Minorities like Jews and Roma have their own religions.